Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Radical ReformissionCopyright 2004 by Mars Hill ChurchRequests for information should be addressed to:Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataDriscoll, Mark, 1970-- The radical reformission : reaching out without selling out / Mark Driscoll.--- 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-310-25659-3 1. Evangelistic work---United States. 2. Christianity and culture---United States. I. Title. BV3793.D752004269'.2---dc22 2004010004All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means---electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other---except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.Interior design by Tracey MoranPrinted in the United States of America0405060708/v DC/10987654321@2TOC_TTL = contents acknowledgments 9introduction: 11my personal reformission and the emerging reformission movementpart 1: loving your Lord through the gospel 1. eat, drink, and be a merry missionary: 27imitating the reformission of Jesusreformission interview with David Bruce: Hollywood Jesus 2. and now, the news: 45shaping a reformission gospelreformission interview with Ichabod Caine: Christians and country music 3. shotgun weddings to Jesus: 65reformission evangelismreformission interview with Stef Hjertager: from dancer to deaconpart 2: loving your neighbor in the culture 4. Elvis in Eden: 91a reformission understanding of culturereformission interview with Crash: what would Jesus tattoo? 5. going to seminary at the grocery store: 117connecting with culture in reformissionreformission interview with Tim Ottley: rocking for the Lamb 6. the sin of light beer: 139how syncretism and sectarianismundermine reformissionreformission interview with Mike Hale: Protestant pubs 7. postmodern pandemonium: 159defeating the new demonsreformission interview with Jenny Schneider: glued to the tubeconclusion: 181from demons to dreams: building a kingdom culturepostscript 191appendix: 193peering through portals into tomorrow notes 201@1CHAP_NUM = Chapter 1eat, drink, and be a merry missionaryimitating the reformission of JesusJesus. The first word of this book must be Jesus, because everything, reformission included, begins and ends with him. But the longer someone is a Christian, the greater their propensity to diminish the Jesus of the Bible until he becomes a predictable little God who ceases to surprise them. Therefore, it is imperative that all Christians continually search the Scriptures in order to see Jesus clearly. And as we read of Jesus' involvement in culture, we see a free and radical God whose life is so shocking that it is self-evident that the story is true, because no one in their right mind could make it up. Therefore, to prepare you for reformission, I first want to remind you of the beautifully scandalous life and grace of Jesus Christ.remembering: what God's story revealsThe story begins with God making all things, then creating a man named Adam. Though Adam is technically perfect, it is still not good for him to be alone. The Bible never tells us why, exactly. Perhaps he would have forgotten to pick up the trash around the Garden of Eden, and the place eventually would have looked like an eternal fraternity without a hint of an annual spring cleaning.Whatever the case, God creates a perfect woman who is beautiful, sinless, and naked---the same kind of woman every guy ever since has been searching for. Adam meets her and, recognizing that his life has just taken a turn for the better, he sings her a song, after which their marriage is consummated. The Bible could end right there, after only two chapters, with the man and woman naked, eating fruit, and trying to fill the earth all by their happy, horny, holy selves.But ever since the dreadful day of the Thud in Eden, we have all been walking around scratching our thick skulls, trying to figure out how to get back to that glorious time. Why? Because our happy, naked first parents sinned against God and brought a curse upon themselves and all of creation. They sinned because they believed the lies of a talking serpent who had been an angel until he got kicked out of heaven for his pride.After they are exiled from Eden, our first parents have two boys, and before long, one boy kills the other. From there, carnage and death ensue, and people grow so wicked that God floods the earth, killing nearly everyone. But he starts over with another decent guy named Noah, who nevertheless ends up having a bad day, gets drunk, and passes out naked in his tent like some redneck on vacation.As time rolls along, God also works through a cowardly old man named Abraham, who is happy to whore out his loving and beautiful antique of a wife to avoid conflict. God also chooses to work through a guy named Jacob, even though he's a trickster and a con man. Later, God raises up a stuttering murderer named Moses to lead his people. Years later, a king named David comes onto the leadership stage, but he becomes an adulterer, a murderer, and an odd type pointing ahead to the promised Christ. David's son Solomon redefines addiction, with more wine, women, and money than any guy could possibly know what to do with, though he gave it a good Hefneresque run. This brief list doesn't even include the prophets, like Ezekiel, whom God tells to cook a meal over his own feces; Hosea, who marries a prostitute; Jeremiah, who cries like a newly crowned beauty queen all the time; or any of the freaks on cable television right now talking about Jee-zus along with their wives, who by God's grace alone are not naked like their mother Eve.And to top it all off, God comes to earth. He has a mom whom everyone thinks is a slut, a dad whom they think has the brilliance of a five-watt bulb for believing the 'virgin birth' line, and brothers who likely pummel him frequently, because even God would have to get at least one wedgie from his brothers if he were to be fully human. The God-Man goes through puberty and likely goes through that weird vocal transition in which, in the course of one syllable, a young man can seamlessly go from sounding like Barry White to sounding like Cindy Brady. God comes hiding in human flesh and, according to Isaiah the prophet, he's a regular-looking guy. In sum, nobody knows exactly who this guy is.Doesn't the story sound like the plot of a trashy, daytime television talk show? The God-Man is born to a teenage virgin in an animal stall, grows up with a blue-collar dad in a dumpy rural town, and has a weird cousin named John, who lives in the woods and survives on a steady diet of bugs, sugar, and repentance.Somehow John becomes the leader of a religious movement with a small posse of guys you'd have to think probably looked like clones of the kid on the porch in the movie Deliverance. Then Jesus takes a few of John's posse as his own. At this point in the story, God is thirty years of age and a classic underachiever with no wife, kids, stable career, or even much of a home.But apparently God is fun to hang with, because he and his posse get invited to a lot of parties, including a wedding, which is basically a week-long wine and dance party celebrating some lucky guy's attempt to get back to Genesis 1 and 2. This would be the first of Jesus' many parties.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1 eat, drink, and be a merry missionary imitating the reformission of Jesus Jesus. The first word of this book must be Jesus, because everything, reformission included, begins and ends with him. But the longer someone is a Christian, the greater their propensity to diminish the Jesus of the Bible until he becomes a predictable little God who ceases to surprise them. Therefore, it is imperative that all Christians continually search the Scriptures in order to see Jesus clearly. And as we read of Jesus' involvement in culture, we see a free and radical God whose life is so shocking that it is self-evident that the story is true, because no one in their right mind could make it up. Therefore, to prepare you for reformission, I first want to remind you of the beautifully scandalous life and grace of Jesus Christ. remembering: what God's story reveals The story begins with God making all things, then creating a man named Adam. Though Adam is technically perfect, it is still not good for him to be alone. The Bible never tells us why, exactly. Perhaps he would have forgotten to pick up the trash around the Garden of Eden, and the place eventually would have looked like an eternal fraternity without a hint of an annual spring cleaning. Whatever the case, God creates a perfect woman who is beautiful, sinless, and naked---the same kind of woman every guy ever since has been searching for. Adam meets her and, recognizing that his life has just taken a turn for the better, he sings her a song, after which their marriage is consummated. The Bible could end right there, after only two chapters, with the man and woman naked, eating fruit, and trying to fill the earth all by their happy, horny, holy selves. But ever since the dreadful day of the Thud in Eden, we have all been walking around scratching our thick skulls, trying to figure out how to get back to that glorious time. Why? Because our happy, naked first parents sinned against God and brought a curse upon themselves and all of creation. They sinned because they believed the lies of a talking serpent who had been an angel until he got kicked out of heaven for his pride. After they are exiled from Eden, our first parents have two boys, and before long, one boy kills the other. From there, carnage and death ensue, and people grow so wicked that God floods the earth, killing nearly everyone. But he starts over with another decent guy named Noah, who nevertheless ends up having a bad day, gets drunk, and passes out naked in his tent like some redneck on vacation. As time rolls along, God also works through a cowardly old man named Abraham, who is happy to whore out his loving and beautiful antique of a wife to avoid conflict. God also chooses to work through a guy named Jacob, even though he's a trickster and a con man. Later, God raises up a stuttering murderer named Moses to lead his people. Years later, a king named David comes onto the leadership stage, but he becomes an adulterer, a murderer, and an odd type pointing ahead to the promised Christ. David's son Solomon redefines addiction, with more wine, women, and money than any guy could possibly know what to do with, though he gave it a good Hefneresque run. This brief list doesn't even include the prophets, like Ezekiel, whom God tells to cook a meal over his own feces; Hosea, who marries a prostitute; Jeremiah, who cries like a newly crowned beauty queen all the time; or any of the freaks on cable television right now talking about Jee-zus along with their wives, who by God's grace alone are not naked like their mother Eve. And to top it all off, God comes to earth. He has a mom whom everyone thinks is a slut, a dad whom they think has the brilliance of a five-watt bulb for believing the 'virgin birth' line, and brothers who likely pummel him frequently, because even God would have to get at least one wedgie from his brothers if he were to be fully human. The God-Man goes through puberty and likely goes through that weird vocal transition in which, in the course of one syllable, a young man can seamlessly go from sounding like Barry White to sounding like Cindy Brady. God comes hiding in human flesh and, according to Isaiah the prophet, he's a regular-looking guy. In sum, nobody knows exactly who this guy is. Doesn't the story sound like the plot of a trashy, daytime television talk show? The God-Man is born to a teenage virgin in an animal stall, grows up with a blue-collar dad in a dumpy rural town, and has a weird cousin named John, who lives in the woods and survives on a steady diet of bugs, sugar, and repentance. Somehow John becomes the leader of a religious movement with a small posse of guys you'd have to think probably looked like clones of the kid on the porch in the movie Deliverance. Then Jesus takes a few of John's posse as his own. At this point in the story, God is thirty years of age and a classic underachiever with no wife, kids, stable career, or even much of a home. But apparently God is fun to hang with, because he and his posse get invited to a lot of parties, including a wedding, which is basically a week-long wine and dance party celebrating some lucky guy's attempt to get back to Genesis 1 and 2. This would be the first of Jesus' many parties. The constipated religious leaders of his day accuse him of being a drunkard, a glutton, and a crooked guy who always hangs out with the wrong people: easy girls like Mary, crooked mafia types like Matthew, and the kids in high school who always wear black concert T-shirts, sport greasy male ponytails, and smoke cigarettes just off school property during lunch (Matt. 11:19). To the religious leaders, Jesus is a scandal---his followers are felons---and every time they see Jesus, it agitates them that he is always surrounded by a crowd, telling knock-knock jokes to miscreants who love his sense of humor (because his perfection had to have included comedic timing). Anyway, Jesus shows up at a wedding and begins his public ministry. God has come to earth, and he kicks things off as a bartender. Some poor kids getting married have run out of wine and face humiliation with their friends and family. So Jesus' mom, Mary, comes and asks her son, God, to do something about it. In a show of irony, he takes six large stone jars used for ceremonial washing and asks for them to be filled with water, not for cleansing and religious purification but so he can turn that water into wine. And this is not the cheap wine named after a bird or a handgun but good wine, fine wine, the kind bearing a foreign name most Americans can't even pronounce because it is not spelled B-u-d-w-e-i-s-e-r. The Bible says that this is how the sovereign, eternal God of the universe first makes his glory known. Paul says this message of Jesus sounds like foolishness and that many people trip over him in their failed attempts to find him. Why? The reasons are legion, but they include the ignorance of the freedom of Christ from which Christians obtain their freedom in Christ. In an effort to illustrate this truth, I will tell you about an experience I had with a gay cowboy friend of mine. repenting: what happened in a bar As a newer Christian, I was the plankton in a conservative, suburban megachurch food chain. My hope was to get called up to the big leagues and be a full-time pastor, and so I attended a solid Bible-teaching seminary, volunteered at the church, and labored to build a good reputation as a morally upright man. I did not drink, smoke, or do anything that could give others the impression that I was a bad sinner. Then I got a phone call from an old college friend whom God had used to bring me to faith. He was a zealous charismaniac type who had relentlessly chased me around campus the first few months of my freshman year, trying to get me to pray the Sinner's Prayer. After my conversion, he
